Search This Blog

Subscribe to this blog

Follow by Email

Iran says no missile talks unless West gives up nuclear weapons

US President Donald Trump has threatened to tear up a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers unless more is done to curb Iran’s missile programme.

An Iranian precision-guided ballistic missile is tested at an undisclosed location on October 11, 2015.

Iran’s armed forces spokesman said on Saturday that there can be no talks on the country’s missile programme without the West’s destruction of its nuclear weapons and long-range missiles.

“What Americans say out of desperation with regards to limiting the Islamic republic of Iran’s missile capability is an unattainable dream,” Brig Gen Masoud Jazayeri told official IRNA news agency.

“The condition for negotiations on Iran’s missiles is the destruction of America’s and Europe’s nuclear weapons and long-range missiles.”

Jazayeri said US criticism of Iran’s missile programme was driven by “their failures and defeats in the region”.

US President Donald Trump has threatened to tear up a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers unless more is done to curb Iran’s missile programme.

European governments have been scrambling to appease Trump and keep the deal intact, and have voiced increasing concern over Iran’s missile programme.

French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, who is due to visit Iran on Monday, said last month that its missile programme and involvement in regional conflicts needed to be addressed if Iran “wants to return to the family of nations”.

Ali Akbar Velayati, foreign policy advisor to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, criticised Le Drian’s position on Saturday, just two days before they are expected to meet.

“Iran’s defence programme is not the concern of other countries such as France, that they should come and tell us what missiles we can have. Do we tell France how it should defend itself?” he told semi-official ISNA news agency.

“If Le Drian’s visit is aimed at reinforcing our relations, he would do well to avoid negative positions,” Velayati added.

SAINT PETERSBURG: A
homemade bomb blast at a supermarket in the Russian city of Saint Petersburg injured 10 people Wednesday, officials said, sparking a
probe into attempted murder.

"According to preliminary information, an explosion of
an unidentified object occurred in a store," a spokeswoman for Russia's Investigative
Committee, Svetlana Petrenko, said in a statement.

The blast was caused by a "homemade explosive device
with the power equivalent to 200 grammes of TNT filled with lethal
fragments," she said.

"The investigation is looking at all possible causes of
what happened," she said, adding that a probe for attempted murder had
been launched.

The incident comes several months after Russia's second city
was rocked with a metro bombing in April which killed 16 people and amid
concern that hundreds of Russian citizens who travelled to fight alongside
jihadists groups abroad could pose a mounting security challenge back home.

Rattled by a one-two
punch of betrayal and scandal, Donald Trump on Thursday tried to block the
publication of a bare-knuckle book that portrays his White House as a fetid
stew of backbiting, incompetence and dysfunction. The publishers
responded by moving the release date up by four days to Friday. Trump instructed his
lawyers to prevent the release of “Fire and Fury: Inside
the Trump White House” -- an expose by author and political muckraker Michael
Wolff -- which quotes key Trump aides expressing serious doubt
about his fitness for office. The book -- which
paints Trump as mentally unstable and far out of his depth -- quotes at length
his former ally and chief strategist Steve Bannon, who also received a “cease and
desist” order from Trump’s attorneys. “Your publication of
the false/baseless statements about Mr. Trump gives rise to, among other
claims, defamation by libel, defamation by libel per se, false light invasion
of privacy, tortious interference with contractual relations, an…